Retribution (9781429922593) (35 page)

No one was in sight, but in the distance—in the direction they were headed—the sounds of automatic weapons fire and the occasional sharp crack of a small breaching explosion drifted up to them.

Cole, dressed in Cryes and bloused boots, ran with an easy gait. McGarvey wore jeans, a light-colored polo shirt, and Topsiders. He'd been required to leave his pistol in his car outside the front gate. The day was warm and the path downhill was easy.

They ran in silence for a few minutes until they reached the woods, where the path split off in two directions. Cole took the route up a fairly steep hill.

“If you need to pull over let me know,” Cole said.

Rautanen was right—the guy was a prick. There were lots of his type in the military and as civilians in government; this didn't make them bad, just self-important assholes.

McGarvey picked up the pace. “No, thanks,” he said.

If Cole was irritated he didn't show it; he just matched the pace. “I was a little surprised to get your call. What can I do for you this time?”

“I came down to let you know what I'm going to do. See if you wanted to coordinate efforts. They were your guys, after all.”

“I understand what you're saying, but there's no way in hell any military organization on this planet, now or ever in history, could hope to keep track of all of its discharged—retired or otherwise—personnel. Logistically it's impossible. Surely you can understand.”

“These guys were special, captain.”

“Nothing I can do.”

“They did a tough job for us, and now we're just tossing them aside.”

“I'm following orders,” Cole shot back.

McGarvey had heard the same excuse before. Lots of times. “I figured you'd say something like that.”

Cole pulled up short and glared at him. “What the hell do you want me to do? Why the fuck did you come back here?”

“Just to let you know what's in the works.”

“If it's about my ex-wife, forget it. I told you before, she's not involved. It's not like her. She's a bitcher, not a doer.”

“I hear you,” McGarvey said. “Do you want to know what I'm planning?”

“Frankly, no,” Cole said, and he took off up the hill.

McGarvey kept the pace. “His name is Greg Rautanen. A chief petty officer, out of SEAL Team Six for about three years now.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He was one of the operators on Neptune Spear. Bit of a basket case now. Wife left him, so he's all alone.”

“A lot of operators come through here.”

“He's agreed to work with me.”

“Doing what?”

“The same people who took out Barnes and Ridder and their families are coming back to finish the job. Only this time it's me they want. And I'm going to make it easy for them. Rautanen and I are going to hide in plain sight.”

“Here in Norfolk?”

“That's right. Possibly tonight.”

Cole stopped at the crest of the hill. Below them was an urban battle setting of a dozen concrete-block buildings Six operators appeared around the corner of one of the buildings. One of them did something to a door, then swung wide away from it. Three seconds later the breaching charge blew the door inward, and the six operators charged inside.

“You're planning on instigating a firefight in some neighborhood, maybe get some innocent people killed?”

“Some innocent people have already been killed.”

“I suppose I could call the ONI, but I'd be wasting my time. The local cops might be interested. But maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and let it play out like you think it will. Get yourself and Ratman killed. For what?”

Bingo, McGarvey said to himself. “Because someone cares.”

Cole bridled. “Listen, you son of a bitch.”

“I'll find my way back,” McGarvey said.

He turned on his heel and jogged back down the hill and up the other side to the admin building where Ensign Mader, who had picked him up at the front gate, was waiting beside his Hummer.

“Where's Captain Cole?”

“He wanted to watch the end of a training evolution on the other side of the hill.”

The ensign, who'd been smoking, field-stripped his cigarette, placing the filter in his pocket, and drove McGarvey back to the main gate.

“The captain was seriously pissed off the last time you came down here. Took it out on us.”

“That's your problem.”

“What the hell are you doing here, sir?”

“Ask the captain.”

“I'm asking you, sir.”

“Stay out of it, Ensign,” McGarvey said harshly. “There's some serious stuff coming down that's way above your pay grade. And when the shit hits the fan, which it will, anyone nearby is going to get dirty.”

But Mader was young and gung ho. “These are my people,” he shot back angrily. “I'm not just some fucking drill instructor. I go out on deployments. I've been plenty dirty before. And I expect I will be again.”

“We all will,” McGarvey said. But there was no way in hell he was going to tell the kid that he suspected Cole was selling them out. He just couldn't think of a reason for it.

 

SIXTY-THREE

Shockoe Slip was a section along the James River not far from downtown Richmond where tobacco warehouses used to do a bustling business. The once-seedy district had been turned into a fairly prosperous area of restaurants, shops, and apartments. Most of the warehouses still existed, though they no longer contained tobacco.

It was three when Pam happened to look across the street from the sidewalk café where she and Ayesha had been sitting nursing sweet ice teas for nearly two hours in time to see three Hispanic-looking kids in their very early teens beating up on a black kid who was maybe eight or nine years old.

“That never happens in Islamabad,” Ayesha said. “The tension between black and white has to be an embarrassment to Washington.”

Pam had listened to her crap the entire way from Montreal. “The Sunnis don't kick the shit out of the Shi'ites? Give me a break.”

“That's different,” Ayesha flared.

The young black kid got out from under his tormentors and disappeared around the corner, but no one on the street, in passing cars, or in the restaurants seemed to notice or care.

“I don't like this place,” Ayesha said. “May we leave?”

“Not yet,” Pam said. The three Hispanic kids had walked away as soon as the black kid had disappeared. It had been too easy, she thought. Too staged. They hadn't followed him.

A police car cruised past, and as it rounded the corner where the kids had gone, its lights came on and its siren whooped twice.

Thirty seconds later the black kid walked past. “Yo, ladies, Ludlow is waiting,” he said without slowing down or looking at them.

Pam laid down a twenty-dollar bill, and she and Ayesha got up and headed after the kid, keeping back a little, until he went down one of the narrow alleys that ran along the riverside. And then they caught up.

“Friends of yours across the street?” Pam asked.

Close up the kid was small, but he had the facial expressions and features of a teenager who'd spent a long time on the street.

“They're ragheads, but they're okay,” he said. He looked pointedly at Ayesha. “Wanna fuck when we're done with business?”

“No, she doesn't, you little bastard,” Pam said.

The kid laughed. “You can call me Fredrick, but it's true I never did know my ol' man.”

They came to one of the old tobacco warehouses, in a neighborhood of similar three-story buildings that had been converted to apartments or condos. Fredrick punched a code into a door reader. Inside they walked to the rear of the building and took an old freight elevator down to the level of the river's loading docks.

On the ground floor the lobby had been tastefully painted in soft tans and greens, carpeting, even a small, modern chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. But down here the stone walls were dank and dirty, the floor covered in old uneven planks that were worn down in a path.

At the end of the corridor the kid opened a thick steel door that moved aside on rollers. “Ludlow's waiting inside for you,” he said. He gave Ayesha another smile. “You change your mind, let me know, I'll be around.”

The warehouse room was large, with steel shutters over the windows and loading doors facing the river. A dozen safes were arranged along two walls, while a long table covered with a green felt cloth dominated the center. There were no chairs or filing cabinets—nothing else, except lights dangling from the ceiling.

Ludlow, the only name Gloria had given them, came toward them out of the darkness in a corner. He was possibly the tallest, thinnest man Pam had ever met. At nearly seven feet, and perhaps one hundred fifty pounds or so, she thought he might have been a performer in a circus or carnival somewhere—a
moko
jumbie
who didn't need stilts. But he was old, somewhat hunchbacked, and his crinkly gray hair, narrow black face, and sunken cheeks and jowls made him look like a clown who made you want to cry.

He stopped within arm's length and offered them a thin smile.

“Ms. Pamela, Mrs. Ayesha, a certain party informed me that you might wish to do some business today,” he said. “You will be engaging in an operation in the open, or will stealth be important?”

“Stealth,” Pam said. Gloria had promised that this guy was one of the best in the business.

“And how many persons will need to be armed?”

“Five, including me.”

“And what of Mrs. Ayesha, perhaps a small defensive weapon?”

“Yes,” Ayesha said.

“No,” Pam said. “The lady is to be a distant observer.”

They had talked about it on the way down from Washington. Ayesha's argument was that she was paying for the op and she wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to kill the bastard who'd caused her husband's death. Pam's argument was that she had no idea of the level of firearms training Ayesha had received, and she didn't want an amateur in her group with a deadly weapon in hand.

Ludlow waited politely for Ayesha to object. When she didn't, he nodded.

“May I be told the nature of your operation?” he asked Pam.

“Assassinations, most likely at close range and most likely in quiet neighborhood settings.”

“I see. And may I know if you would like suggestions, or have you already determined your equipment needs.”

“Glock 26 pistols, nine-by-nineteen. Five of them, along with suppressors, and four magazines of ammunition each.”

Ludlow neither approved nor disapproved; he merely nodded knowingly. “You have a choice of magazine capacity—ten rounds, twelve, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, or thirty-three. Although I must advise that because of the compact nature of the really very excellent little weapon, magazine capacities of above fifteen rounds defeat the general purpose of conceal-and-carry.”

“Fifteen-round magazines will be sufficient.”

“Now then, we come to the matter of holsters.”

“Simple thumb-break paddle holsters will do. Four right-handed and one lefty.” Hesier was left-handed.

“Knives, garrotes, or other specialized equipment?” Ludlow asked. “I can't imagine that you will be needing flash-bang grenades or any other noisemakers in the setting you describe.”

“No,” Pam said. “But I will need five Ingram MAC 10s, with suppressors, and four 30-round magazines of the .45 ACP rounds. Shoulder stocks will not be necessary, though leather slings to carry the weapons beneath coats or jackets could come in handy.”

“A fine submachine gun, though not particularly accurate beyond ten feet, especially with the suppressor.”

“Accuracy beyond that distance will not be an issue.”

“Anything else?”

“How soon can you have the equipment here?”

“Oh, everything you require is already here,” Ludlow said. “How soon can you have the cash?”

“How much?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

Ayesha started to object, but Pam held her off.

“Do you have a secure Internet connection?”

“Yes.”

“I'll bring the car around, and Ayesha will take care of the payment. But the transfer will not go through until I have personally inspected everything.”

“Nor will I release the equipment until I have confirmation of the transfer.”

“Then we have an agreement,” Pam said.

“Of course.”

 

SIXTY-FOUR

McGarvey and Pete had checked into a Marriott Courtyard near Cape Henry, the section of the coast where the settlers on their way to Jamestown first landed on the mainland. Pete had agreed to wait until he came back from meeting Cole. She was in the lobby having a cup of coffee when he showed up.

“How'd it go?” she asked. She was excited but trying not to show it.

“About how I expected it to go,” McGarvey said. “Did you get any lunch?”

“No.”

They went out to the Hummer, which McGarvey had parked under the overhang. He drove over to a 7-Eleven, where he bought a six-pack of Bud, and then to a McDonald's, where they got burgers and fries, and he drove to the park. They had to pay for a sticker to get in.

The day was bright. They sat at a picnic table eating lunch. The ocean a deep blue and unusually calm. Not far away a cross commemorated the site marking the spot where British North America, and eventually the United States, had begun.

“I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs. What'd he say?” Pete demanded.

“His hands are officially tied. ‘We can't keep track of every GI who ever served.' Said he didn't know Rautanen, but he let it slip he knew the guy's handle.”

“What's next? This isn't going to happen unless he's the leak, which I find hard to believe. He may be an asshole, from what you said and from what Rautanen told you, but that doesn't mean he's selling his guys out.” Pete looked away. “This just doesn't make any sense, Mac. I talked to Otto about it while you were gone. He said Cole doesn't appear to have any financial problems. No mistress. He's married, apparently happily, at least his wife hasn't filed a restraining order against him or anything like that. He's been passed over for his star, but his last two psych evals don't show anything except a mild resentment and frustration that he hasn't been promoted. He knows that the third time's a charm, but he's not going nuts over it.”